Macro N Cheese

**We’re listening to and discussing this episode on Tuesday, July 14 at 8pm ET/5pm PT, in our online gathering Macro ‘n Chill. We’ve invited Breht to join us, so bring your questions. Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/PXkazv5WTWW7b7kMExA8uw "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need." Steve's guest, Breht O’Shea of Rev Left Radio and Red Menace pod...

**Tuesday evening, at 8 pm ET/5 pm PT, we’ll be listening to this episode and discussing it during our online gathering, Macro ‘n Chill. Bring your thoughts, your insights, your questions. July 7th at at 8 pm ET/5 pm PT. Use this link to register: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/ay2YXuCvRLOp1dV5yh8HKw Women in politics, media, and public life are often placed at the center of the spectacl...

Modern Monetary Theory explains how sovereign currency systems work, but it doesn’t tell us who controls the state or whose interests state power serves. Economist Bill Mitchell suggests that a dialectical understanding of capitalism is essential for answering that question. He and Steve discuss MMT not as a policy prescription but as a lens to dissect the capitalist state, not a neutral arbiter b...

** Don't forget about Tuesday’s Macro ‘n Chill, the online gathering where we listen to the podcast together and discuss the issues it covers. Bring your insights, questions, and good-faith disagreements. June 23, 8pm ET/5pm PT. Use this link to register https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/yI-UE7W1TcGglJSZ2l-Ffg As much as we'd like to blame Donald Trump for the near-destruction of higher edu...

** Come to Macro ‘n Chill, the online gathering where we listen to the podcast together and discuss what we learned and where we agree or disagree. Tuesday, June 16, 8pm ET/5pm PT. Use this link to register: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Qm85bGIOSF2H_uNMwOmWtQ Ecosocialist author, Ian Angus, talks with Steve about his book Metabolic Rifts: Capitalism's Assault on the Earth System. They...

Join us Tuesday, June 9th, at Macro ‘n Chill, the online gathering where we’ll listen to and discuss this episode. 8pm ET/5pm PT. Register with this link: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/L40tjKhOSCGCJTR-R-QJvw The title of Robin Andersen’s upcoming book (published next week) is The Complicit Lens: US Media Coverage of the Genocide in Gaza . You can see why Steve wanted to talk with her. T...

**Every Tuesday we hold an online gathering where we listen to and talk about the episode while building community. Share your insights and questions as we educate ourselves and each other. Macro ‘n Chill, June 2, 8pm ET/5pm PT. Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/OEYtu7v-SciBITwiIWwdzw A frequent theme of our podcast revolves around the contradiction between formal political r...

**Will we see you at Macro ‘n Chill on Tuesday? You’re invited to join our online gathering where we listen to the episode together and share our insights and questions. May 26 at 8pm ET/5pm PT. Use this link to register https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/UHE6NoSDRbibqXYAeJJ8gQ Disinformation is neither an accident nor excess; it is the normal functioning of late capitalism’s media apparatus...

** This Tuesday, come to Macro ‘n Chill, our online gathering. Bring your insights and questions about this episode. May 19 at 8pm ET/5pm PT Use this link to register: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/AIz56SKPT6Gfh0pXhs3PTw You may know Luna Nguyen as Luna Oi, the YouTuber and member of the Non-Compete content collective who creates videos about culture, history, and politics in Vietnam, a...

** This Tuesday, May 12, come to Macro ‘n Chill, our online gathering where we listen to and discuss this episode. Bring your questions and insights. 8pm ET/5pm PT. Use this link to register: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/rn_HAqgaSRGdj8W2UX9aKw Did you think we had abandoned MMT? Well, after a few weeks of tackling some rather prickly topics, we’re back to strictly non-controversial mac...

** Macro ‘n Chill is our weekly online gathering where we listen to the podcast episode and talk about it among friends. This Tuesday, Jeremy of Proles Pod will be with us to answer questions. May 5 at 8pm ET/5pm PT Use this link to register: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/gCOXxGttQryRnQNq-A3NbA This is Part 2 of Steve’s interview with Jeremy, co-host of Proles Pod, talking about their e...

** Come to Macro ‘n Chill, our online community gathering, where we listen to and discuss the current episode. This week, Jeremy of Proles Pod will be joining us. If you have questions for him, bring them! Tuesday, April 28th, at 8pm ET/5pm PT. Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/G7ijDSVmTcKeDc82AAs0XQ Last year, Proles Pod completed a multi-part series on The Stalin Eras. Now...

** Questions about MMT? Thoughts about the episode? Come to our online gathering, Macro ‘n Chill. Tuesday, April 21, 8pm ET/5pm PT. Use this link to register: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/RkspaP0RSNajdc69bqUmkA Jim Byrne of MMT101 is back for a conversation that moves beyond the technical mechanics of Modern Monetary Theory to ask the tough questions. While affirming MMT’s core insight...

** This week’s Macro ‘n Chill might shake us up. Some of us, at least. Come discuss the episode with the community. Tues, April 14, 8pm ET/5pm PT. Use this link to register: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/PIf2VnjBS-mwX-Bd4BwWYQ In a solo episode, Steve sets out to describe and explain some of the shifts in direction for Real Progressives and the podcast, mirroring his own changing perspe...

Join our community on Tuesday evening as we listen to and discuss this episode. April 7th at 8pm ET/5pm PT. Use this link to register: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/nkkVRy2JQbW2Eh4VDtcNHQ Clara Mattei and her first book, The Capital Order , were hugely important to Real Progressives as we began to expand our focus from Modern Monetary Theory and investigate the political economy of the...

Carlos García Hernández, author of Fiat Socialism: Achieving the Goals of Socialism Through Modern Monetary Theory, joins Steve to revisit their discussion of topics covered in his earlier visits to the podcast. Their dialogue wrestles with a deceptively simple question: if we already have the monetary capacity to guarantee jobs, housing, and public goods, why does capitalism still dominate? Throu...

** Tuesday evening, March 24, we’ll be listening to and discussing this episode in our online gathering, Macro ‘n Chill. Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/DeGM2oAyRt2O-Xsj1nc4IQ Thomas Fazi joins Steve to dissect the geopolitical and ideological structures that have rendered Europe strategically subordinate to the United States. Thomas argues that NATO’s true purpose, from it...

** Join our community-building online gathering where we listen to the episode together and discuss it in a relaxed, supportive atmosphere. Tuesday, March 17, at 8pm ET/5pm PT. https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/o3miFIPmSAC2d46Vh14iBA One of our favorite guests is back to talk about the central problem facing much of the Global South. It is not simply bad policy or weak leadership, but the p...

Erald Kolasi is back to attack the bourgeois narrative on immigration, which reduces it to a series of individual choices. He and Steve dig into the material roots of migration, showing how empire, land theft, war, labor exploitation, and capitalist crisis have shaped global migration flows for centuries. They ground the discussion in Wallerstein's world-systems theory, defining an empire not by i...

While we’re being distracted by chatbots and AI gimmicks, Silicon Valley is quietly embedding its products into surveillance systems, border enforcement, battlefield logistics, and even nuclear command-and-control. The real money isn’t in selfies with AI. It’s in Pentagon contracts and permanent war footing. Investigative reporter Peter Byrne is back to talk with Steve about his 10-part Military A...

“...Some are dancing, some are drowning, but in the end everybody’s going to go under.” Dr. Ali Kadri (Sun Yat-sen University), author of the Unmaking of Arab Socialism , joins Steve to talk about imperialism, development, and why the Arab world keeps getting put through the capitalist meat grinder. Ali argues that capitalism isn’t just markets and greed. It’s a destructive social relationship. On...

Can Marxists and MMTers find common ground, or are they doomed to be strategic enemies? Steve’s guest is Australian labor historian and organizer Owen Bennett, who founded the Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union in 2015, and more recently, Unionists for a Job Guarantee in 2024. He and Steve explore how to tackle the deep divide between Modern Monetary Theory and the Marxist left. Owen argues that...

This week Steve invited Gabriel Rockhill to talk about his new book Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism? Vol 1 of The Intellectual World War. The war on communism is about protecting imperial super-profits, keeping cheap labor and resources flowing from the Global South to the imperial core. It has never been about lofty values and freedom fries. So why does the empire care about books, grants,...

Funding white supremacy is a core, not incidental, function of the modern capitalist state in the U.S. It is also the title of economist Robert B. Williams’ 2025 book, Funding White Supremacy: Federal Wealth Policies and the Modern Racial Wealth Gap . Bob and Steve share the fundamental position that capitalism doesn’t just produce inequality by accident, it builds durable ladders for some and tra...

We’ve made the case before, but it bears repeating: MMT is a politically neutral, descriptive lens explaining the operational realities of a sovereign fiat currency system where the availability of real resources, not money, are the constraint. And Marxism is an a nalytical framework for understanding class relations and production. The two are not inherently opposed. It’s a mistake to dismiss MMT...